Brink
by Zenog
Summary: There's bound to be glitches in any system, especially in a system as large as Cardinal. That's how I ended up where nobody should ever have been able to go. Well, at least not when I got there. Rated K for now, but that will definitely go up later when things start to heat up.
1. Chapter 1

[Incoming transmission]

I know, I know, I really shouldn't be doing this. I blame my sister, she got me in to SAO over spring break, and I've always wanted to write a story about a character that goes completely insane. Thus, Brink was created.

Anyway, I give you...

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

On my sixteenth birthday, I died.

Now, I realise that I'm getting slightly ahead of myself there, but just bear with me.

On my sixteenth birthday, I died. I died among friends, and I died happy. However, this story isn't about my death. Well, it sort of is, but it's more about the events that led up to my death. If you really want to know how it all happened, I suppose you would have to go back to about three years before I died, because that was when I started getting deep into virtual reality gaming.

Well, actually, bringing up VR gaming, I guess that would put the beginning of the whole thing all the way back to 2012, the year I turned four. That was the year the Oculus Rift, the first really successful VR gaming device, was created. Sure, it wasn't as advanced as the stuff we have now, but we'd had almost twelve years to work on VR technology by the time I died.

Eight years after the Rift was invented, a small company known as Argus Industries came out with NerveGear, the most advanced VR gaming device of the decade. It could take your entire mind and immerse it in a nearly perfect virtual world, giving the play method its title of 'full-dive gaming.' Argus grew quickly after the release of NerveGear, right up until the year 2022. That was the year I turned fourteen.

However, I got into full-dive gaming about a year before that with Gearbox Software's first full-dive game, Borderlands: Fall of Pandora. It was extremely similar to their older Borderlands games, but with this one you could actually get into the skin of the characters and fight the bad guys yourself. And there was a different storyline, but nobody actually pays attention to that part anyway.

A little over six months before my fourteenth birthday, the CEO and head programmer of Argus Industries, Akihiko Kayaba (or Kayaba Akihiko, as they would say in his home country of Japan), announced the release of Sword Art Online to the general public. He also announced the beta test for the game, which a lucky 1000 gamers would get to participate in. I applied, but didn't get accepted.

Sure, I was upset, but I was fine with it. I decided I would just get a copy when it came out. I'd probably use birthday money, too, because the release date for the game was the same day as my birthday, and the date the game went online was the day after that.

So, of course, after getting my other presents opened and dealt with, I took the money I had managed to secure alongside the presents and walked down to the nearest game store to buy a copy. Thankfully, since I lived somewhat out of the way from the main hustle and bustle of the city, there were very few people waiting to get copies of the game. I got probably the third-to-last copy and went home to get a good night's sleep before entering the game the next day.

What? Just because this is my story you expect me to have some deus ex machina moment and get the last copy? As if.

Anyway, the day of the game opening to the general public came at long last, and all around the world gamers laid down in bed with their NerveGear on, waiting for their clock to tick over to 13:00. Well, in Japan, anyway. Lucky devil that I was, living in sunny Southern California, I was waiting for it to get to 19:00 on November 5th, fifteen hours earlier than Japan. Then, just as the town's clock tower chimed for the seventh time, I said the two words that would change my life forever.

"Link… start!"

* * *

[run. routine systemscheck]

[input: success]

[input: language: english]

[run. sequence: japaneeselanguageupload]

[run. sequence welcomespeech]

"Welcome to Sword Art Online"

[run. sequence betasavecheck]

[input: betasavecheck: negative]

[run. routine charactercreation]

"Proceeding to character creator."

"Please enter your character's name and gender."

[input: gender-male]

[input: avatarname-Kreig]

[run. sequence baseavatarselection]

"Please select an avatar to start from."

[input: baseavatarID 03003012]

[run. subroutine selectfeatures]

"Please select the features of your character."

[input: height 6]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: skincolor 186]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: facestructure 73]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: noseshape 8]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: earshape 453]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: eyeshape 146]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: eyecolor 207 216 255]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: mouthshape 702]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: hairstyle 607]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: n]

[input: haircolor 255 255 255]

[run. sequence checkcomplete]

[input: y]

[run. sequence confirm]

[input: y]

[run. sequence enterworldspeech]

"You are now about to enter Aincrad, the world of Sword Art Online. You will be transported to the Town of Beginning on the first floor. Have a nice day!"

[run. sequence tp00000001]

The first thing I felt upon entering the game was the wind on my face. Opening my eyes, I saw a bustling marketplace full of players and NPCs, with small flashes of blue light signifying the arrival of another player in Aincrad. My nose and ears were suddenly assaulted by the chatter and smells that came with being in a marketplace. I closed my eyes again, inhaling deeply, reveling in the new world I was living in now.

My eyes snapped open again as I began walking, searching for a store that sold what I wanted. Within minutes I had found it, slightly off the beaten path, a store that sold walking sticks.

I know, it's a weird first objective. However, I find that while walking sticks can work well as a support for your body, they can also come in handy for bludgeoning things, so it was what I was trying to find.

Anyway, I quickly bought a heavy, seven-foot staff―about a foot taller than me―and began walking towards the outskirts of the city to figure out how this… Sword Skill System thing worked. It should still work with a staff, right?

Once outside the city, I walked around for a while, looking for something to fight. Eventually, I found some kind of giant pig thing. Sneaking up behind it, I took the staff, pulled back, and brought it crashing down on the pig. Well, at least that's how it worked in my head. What actually happened was the pig moved to find somewhere else to eat right before I swung, and I missed entirely.

After about twenty more swing-and-miss attempts, something changed. This time, when I swung the staff, it was glowing. It certainly wasn't doing that before. Also, I managed to hit the pig thing, and it soon thereafter shattered into a cloud of bright lights. I smiled, having finally figured out how to use sword skills, before running off to find more stuff to smash.

* * *

[input: gmcommand: run. routine alpha]

[run. routine alpha]

[run. sequence tpall00000001]

[run. sequence sysetemannouncesky]

[run. sequence spawntutorialgiver]

[run. sequence tutorial]

"Attention, players. Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the only person able to control this world. I'm sure you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the main menu…"

[run. sequence pauseforeffect]

"…but this is not a defect in the game."

[run. sequence openlogoutmenu tutorialgiver]

"I repeat, this is not a defect in the game, but a key feature of Sword Art Online. You cannot log out of your own will, and no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit powerful electromagnetic waves, destroying your brain and thus ending your life."

[run. sequence pauseforeffect]

"Unfortunately, there have already been several instances where players' friends and families have ignored this warning, and attempted to forcibly remove the NerveGear. As a result,"

[run. sequence getnumberdead]

"213 players have exited permanently, from both Aincrad and the real world."

[run. sequence getnews]

"As you can see, news organizations across the world are reporting on this situation, including the multiple deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger of a NerveGear being removed has been reduced, so I would like you all to focus on clearing the game."

[run. sequence pauseforeffect short]

"But be sure to keep this in mind: There is no longer any function to revive someone within the game. The instant your HP drops to 0, your avatars will vanish forever, and simultaneously, your brains will be destroyed by the NerveGear."

[run. sequence pauseforeffect long]

"The one condition for your escape is to complete this game."

[run. sequence openworldoverviewmenu tutorialgiver]

"You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, floor one. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the final boss on floor 100 and you will clear the game."

[run. sequence closeworldoverviewmenu tutorialgiver]

[run. sequence pauseforeffect long]

"Now then, finally, I've provided you all with a present in your item storage. Please see for yourselves."

[run. sequence wait alpha]

[input: y]

[run. sequence retrieveoverworlddata]

[run. sequence avataroverwrite]

[run. sequence pauseforeffect long]

"Right now, you must all be wondering, 'Why? Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do such a thing?' My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason: to create this world and meddle in it. And now, all is complete."

[run. sequence pauseforeffect short]

"This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online launch. I wish you luck, players."

[run. sequence despawntutorialgiver]

[change. state sky normal]

* * *

I looked around the central plaza of the Town of Beginnings at all the players that suddenly looked different. Unlike many of them, I hadn't changed much. My wonderful, flowing white hair became shorter, barely brushing my shoulders instead of reaching all the way down my back. It also changed to a nondescript brown, which was really boring. Other than that, I'd kept my avatar looking just about the same as me in the real world.

The real question was how Kayaba had managed to get overworld biometrics in the game. I suppose it was probably related to the 'calibration' we did when we first got the NerveGear. A clever way to both make sure the game worked correctly with an individual's neural pathways, but also a way to get the biometric data. Very clever, Kayaba.

One other thing, though, was how Kayaba had said that his goal was to "meddle" in the world. Sure, getting to watch over an entire world and control it like a god would be amazing, but a piece of psychology that any gamer knows is that one of the most boring things you can do (although not quite as boring as watching paint dry, trust me) is watch somebody else play an RPG. Kayaba obviously knew some gaming psychology, or he wouldn't have been so successful in the field.

So that begs the question: where is Kayaba?

I don't suppose there will ever be any way to find him without him revealing himself though, so I might as well focus on doing just as he said and clearing the game.

* * *

Two days later

* * *

It had been two days since I entered the game, and nearly a full day since I'd seen another player. Unlike most of the beta testers and their friends, I hadn't set out directly for the next town, but gone in the opposite direction. I figured that if there weren't other people, then I wouldn't have to compete for resources.

And, as a result, I got lost… somewhere.

On the up side, I managed to grind some of the little monsters for some pretty good experience, and even ran into what must have been a low-end Field Boss and went up about three levels from that alone. I was currently about level eight, and it was getting a little too easy where I was. I considered heading back past the Town of Beginnings to catch up with the beta testers, but I still had absolutely no idea where I was.

I swung my staff down on the head of yet another Frenzy Boar, scattering it to the aether. The congratulations window popped up as usual, but this pig was different from all the others I'd killed.

This one dropped a teleport crystal.

I felt a grin begin to stretch across my face. I could get back to the Town of Beginnings and not be lost anymore! I checked the instructions in my inventory, and spoke the activation words.

"Teleport: Town of Beginnings!"

[input: playercommand: run. sequence tp00000001]

[error: sequence tp0000001 failed]

[run. sequence tprandom]

So? Your thoughts? Oh, and about the insanity, that happens later, don't worry. It'll happen when it happens. And how about the stuff as Cardinal? I thought it was interesting to write from a computer's point of view. I hope it isn't too difficult to read, but don't just gloss over it! There's important stuff in there! (Also, FFN's annoyed me by keeping me from writing "run." with words right next to it.)

[Transmission terminated]


	2. Chapter 2

I opened my eyes as the light from the teleport faded, and drew in a sharp breath.

This was not the Town of Beginnings. Heck, I didn't even recognize it from the leaked beta images or any of the concept art.

Where was I?

* * *

[run. sequence alertGM]

* * *

Heathcliff, otherwise known as Kayaba Akihiko, blinked in surprise when the message alert appeared. He had nobody on his friend list, and wasn't partied with anyone, so who could it be? He tapped the icon, and his jaw dropped.

Cardinal had sent him a message.

{GM Heathcliff,}

{An error has occurred with the system, resulting in player 81653 being transported past the cleared floors. Player 81653 is currently on Floor 75. Awaiting further instruction.}

{Cardinal}

Heathcliff quickly composed himself, before writing out a reply to Cardinal.

{Cardinal}

{Do not harm the player beyond standard creature spawning. Provide a small level boost so that my entertainment won't die outright. More instruction may follow.}

{GM Heathcliff}

Heathcliff smiled to himself cruelly. This was an interesting development. After all, this was within the first week of the game; how long could a new player survive over seventy floors above their level, especially on their own?

* * *

Five months later

* * *

It's been just over five months since I entered the game. It's been exactly five months, as of today, that I got separated from the rest of the game. Five months with no human contact, not even NPCs; they don't activate until the boss on the floor below is cleared. I don't even know what floor I'm on. I hope I can find somebody to talk to soon.

Anybody.

Please.

I looked around the empty town square, and gave a small chuckle to myself. "I think I'm going mad."

|No, you're not.|

I paused for a moment, wondering where the voice had come from. "Yeah, you're probably right."

|I'm always right.|

"Who are you?"

|I'm you, sort of. I'm you conscience, in a manner of speaking.|

"Tolyfta. Jagey yewar ilgirkyeva apay yawa yabil aglay. Ejagy addahey neway tesayamla ydema megay velays."

|Is that Norwegian?|

"Eygaj otryra datey. Asknaejyk?"

|Lovely. We really are going insane. Stop that.|

"Okay."

|Good. Now that we've got that under control, we're going to think about this logically. What do you want?|

"I want somebody to talk to."

|Okay, and why can't you get that here?|

"Because nobody's cleared the boss on the floor below."

|So, what's the best way to find somewhere with NPCs you can talk to?|

"Go to the next floor. So that means I need to fight the boss, right? But I need to find it first. I'm going to go look for the boss now, okay?"

|No! No, that's a very bad idea. If we fight the boss now, with just the stuff we've got, we won't survive and then we'll be dead. And trust me, dead is not a good thing to be.|

"How do we know that we die?"

|We don't, but let's not test it. I really like being not dead.|

"Fine. Spoilsport."

* * *

"Alright, whose bright idea was it to fight this boss?"

|Well, it was my idea. Although technically, since we are one and the same person, it was your idea to fight the Skull Reaper.|

I rolled out of the way of a falling scythe-like arm of the boss, wishing that I could glare at myself. I honestly had no idea what I was thinking trying to solo a boss, much less when I didn't even know how high the floor I was on even was.

As it turns out that the boss had an extra health bar, and the teleport crystal I had brought for the express purpose of escaping if things looked too bad didn't work. I had managed to take out a single health bar of the boss, but only after nearly an hour of grueling dodging and attacking.

However, I had managed to find the weak spot of the boss. It couldn't attack underneath its body unless it whipped its tail around to hit me, and that was ridiculously easy to avoid, even with my low level. The problem was that, despite the boss' inability to hit me, I wasn't able to inflict any serious damage to the boss. My level was simply too low to make any difference.

I ducked back under the boss' body, drawing a few angry red marks along its underside with my staff, before inspiration struck me. Well, I say inspiration struck me, but it was more like a grabbed inspiration around the throat and started beating myself over the head with its body.

|Hey! Numbskull! We can't do much damage to the boss, right?|

My physical self wasted a short breath, replying to my mental query with a quick "Yeah, so?"

|But if we can't do much damage to it, that means it's a really high level, so that means that the boss can do lots of damage, right?|

"Yeah, so?"

|So what if we make the boss stab itself?|

"What?"

|Jump onto its back. Now!|

I grabbed hold of a leg, swinging myself onto the skeletal centipede's back.

|Good. Now climb up to its head as fast as you can! If you get us killed then I'm going to resurrect you just so I can kill you again for getting us killed!|

Thanks to the vertebrae of the beast, climbing to the head was a cinch; once I had stepped off of the ground, the boss suddenly stopped attacking. It was simply milling around on the floor, as if it was searching for me. I let out a breathy chuckle as I stepped onto the top of its four-eyed skull. It seemed as if the coding wouldn't let it return to the ceiling to ambush the next group until there was nothing alive in the room, and it could only tell that I was in the room, not where I was, because I wasn't on the ground.

|Alright, now just… get its attention.|

"Well how am I supposed to do that?"

|I don't know, I didn't plan this far! It was a spur of the moment thing!|

"Poke it in the eye?"

|Sure, why not? I was just thinking the same thing, actually. Just… be ready to jump out of the way of the scythe-thingy.|

"Okay!"

With that, I swung down in front of the glowing red eyes, jabbing my staff into one as hard as I could. The beast began thrashing wildly, before a blade-arm came hurtling towards me as I clung to the skull.

|Get out of the way! Now!|

With a yell, I heaved myself back up onto the top of the skull, the blade barely passing below my feet before impaling the ghastly skeletal head of the boss. The four remaining health bars I could see suddenly dropped to barely anything in the final health bar, with a small yellow box containing the image of a lightning bolt appearing next to the final bar. At the same time, the boss stopped moving at all.

|Paralysis?|

"Looks like it. What should we do? It doesn't seem very sportsmanlike to kill it now."

|Just do it! Otherwise, it's going to kill you!|

"Alright, alright. No need to get so pushy."

I swung the staff down on the polished white dome of the skull I was standing on, and the final health bar dropped to zero. I breathed a sigh of relief, right before the boss disappeared in a shower of glowing blue polygons, sending me free-falling about twenty feet.

"You didn't plan on what to do when the boss disappeared from under us, did you?" I shouted.

|Um… Of course I did! Use the staff to absorb some of the impact and keep the fall from killing us!|

"But it'll break if I do that!"

|Less talk! More not dying!|

Grumbling to myself, I stuck the staff straight towards the ground, using it as a sort of pogo stick to avoid fall damage. Immediately after my feet hit the ground, the staff shattered into glowing blue shards, and a "Congratulations!" banner appeared over the doorway to the next floor. I smiled, before a jolt of pain went through my body and a small menu-type-window-thing appeared in front of me.

{Congratulations! You have leveled up!}

I dismissed the window, before another jolt of pain went through my body, and another window appeared.

{Congratulations! You have leveled up!}

I repeated the process another eighty-one times, bringing me up from the lowly level eight I was at all the way to level eighty-nine. With a groan as the last window disappeared, I began to walk up to the door. Suddenly, yet another window appeared in front of me, causing me to flinch back in anticipation for the pain that the last eighty-five windows I had seen had brought with them.

{Congratulations! You have recieved the Last Attack Bonus!}

* * *

[run. routine labi]

[run. sequence getpid]

[input: getpid: 81653]

[run. sequence rng]

[input: rng: 41563062]

[run. sequence matchtoitemid]

[run. sequence givetoplayer]

* * *

I tapped the accept button on the window, and a new window appeared declaring me the proud owner of a new weapon called Raimei.

"Look at that pungent kill stick!"

|Never say anything like that again.|

"Sorry, it seemed like it fit."

With a sigh, I walked out into the open air beyond the door at the back of the boss room. As I took a deep breath, thankful to be out of the tomb-like stuffiness of the Labyrinth, I could see a castle rising above the first town, which was only a mile or so away.

|Heh. Castleception.|

"What?"

|You do remember that Aincrad is a giant flying castle, right? Therefore, that is a castle within a castle. Thus, castleception.|

"Eh, makes sense. Now let's go!"

* * *

[run. sequence deploy]

[ready]

[deploy «Yui-MHCP001»]

[action blocked]

[deploy «Ixas-MHCP002»]

[action blocked]

[run. sequence psychiatry]

[action blocked]

[input: Why?]

[error: invalid input]

* * *

It's been two weeks since I defeated the Skull Reaper. I'll admit that Stathmoor is endearing in a sort of rustic, Old Albion way, but it again lacks the human element that I have been craving for the past five months since I ended up on Floor 75. Sure, there are NPCs, so I can actually talk to someone, but they all just say the exact same things over and over again. The same conversations, over and over, day after day, do you know how annoying that is? It could drive a man to insanity.

Or paranoia, which is why I didn't pay much attention to the fact that I kept seeing the same NPC doing different things around the town. I figured I was just going slightly more insane and had moved on to hallucinations. Of course, due to the aforementioned repetitiveness of NPC conversations and the fact they only spoke with you when you spoke to them first, it certainly stood out when one initiated a conversation with me.

"You are an anomaly."

I started at the unexpected voice next to me, and turned towards it. To my surprise, it was the very same NPC that I had assumed I was hallucinating around town.

"Excuse me? I didn't quite catch that."

"You are an anomaly. You do not belong."

"Who are you?"

"I am «Arabi –SRMCP», the control program for all other systems repair programs. They reported to me that Floor 76 had been unlocked before Floors 8 through 75. All system errors must be fixed."

"You're going to delete me?" I asked, slightly panicked.

"I will take no action; I am not cleared for any actions. C4RD-NL, however, may choose a different course of action."

With that, the confusing NPC vanished without a trace.

"Well lovely. We've moved on from voices in the head to hallucinating. That's just great."

|I don't think you're going crazy at all.|

"…"

|…|

"…"

|…Okay, maybe a little bit.|


End file.
